Entrepreneurship: structural transformation, skills and constraints

Abstract

This paper revisits the place of the entrepreneur in the process of structural transformation and economic development, using representative data from Nigeria. The focus is on the allocation of self-employed individuals with different skill levels across sectors—primary, secondary and tertiary—and on its link to selectivity corrected returns to skills in these sectors. While self-employment is dominated by service sector activities and these activities attract more skilled individuals than do the manufacturing and primary sectors, the level of skills across all three entrepreneurial sectors is lower than that of both salaried workers and individuals who do not work. Returns to skills among self-employed individuals in the manufacturing sector are particularly low. This is at least partially explained by constraints to productive entrepreneurial activities and is inconsistent with the idea of smooth structural transformation towards innovative entrepreneurship. We discuss some conceptual and policy implications.